What you hate is a reflection of you… what does this mean and what baring does it hold on our lives? This is important because it exposes us to the reality that we don’t fully accept ourselves, nor are we able to accept others whose opinions and lifestyles might differ. In order to know what you dislike, you must have personally, on a one-on-one level, experienced it, that is from within yourself. Do you like apples? How do you know if you do or don’t like them?
The fact is, whatever it is that you hate, had to come from first-hand experience, and if you haven’t experienced it firsthand, it must come from within yourself. I experienced extreme violence first-hand, therefore I deplore violence today, but do I hate all people who look like the perpetrators of said violence? No, absolutely not, but I hate any people who look anyway imaginable, who are prone to acts of wanton violence.
Do you hate people who do a certain thing, or act a certain way? Ask yourself why is it that you do, have you acted that way in the past, or is it wholly an external phenomenon to you? I hate people prone to acts of senseless violence because I was that person, I experienced it internally first and have come to hate that aspect of myself, and thus I worked diligently towards actively suppressing it.
Do you hate people who are racist towards others? Have you harbored some semblance of racism towards a group of people in yourself, or again, is it wholly an external phenomenon? I was an antisemite, a racist, and a white supremacist in my past, again I experienced it internally first and came to hate that aspect of myself, so I changed it.
The point is to examine yourself, look deep into what beliefs and thoughts you hold inside of yourself and ask yourself why do they exist? Is it an external fear, do you hold some semblance of those beliefs within yourself, and if so, would you be willing to reexamine those beliefs? If you disagree with something in others but hold similar beliefs yourself, you’re morally inconsistent and this leads one to dislike themselves.
…but there’s good news…
You can change… you’re never too old to change and learn to accept more, hate less, and come to love yourself.
In the ideology of racists; Jewish people hate whites and blacks and therefore cause issues between them both, but blacks are seen as unable to understand that due to being primitive. Now, examine that for a moment, a person in a hate group or ideology, stating others hate them, while thinking less of another group of people. The racism they fight is internal, the hate for those they think of as lesser is internalized because they are morally inconsistent.
If you’re morally inconsistent, you will be in a state of internal conflict, which can cause you to dislike certain elements of yourself, and your mind will try to justify the inconsistency. This can create warped and skewed perspectives which to most would seem illogical, radical, extreme, or wholly aloof. It is in that state where ideology can be fixed into the perspective to radicalize or create extremists, because anything that justifies the moral inconsistencies and can scapegoat them onto another, makes the individual feel better about themselves.
In that state of being, whereas you pass off your inadequacies and moral inconsistencies onto others or institutions, you feel like nothing in your own life, or even in your own mind, is your fault. Feeling that way allows you to freely be at war with the world, without for a moment having to stop to fix yourself, your own shortcomings, or your own issues. This is where it also becomes easy to indoctrinate others, divide others, and sow turmoil on a grander scale; men vs. women, right vs. left, black vs. white, and so on.
So, how do we spot moral inconsistencies? “My body, my choice,” is a phrase used to denote autonomy over one’s own body… the left says it in reference to abortion rights, the right says it against vaccine and mask mandates, while both believe the other is wrong and immoral. The right believes abortion is wrong in almost every instance, while the left believes everyone needs all 14 boosters and needs to wear half a dozen masks or they should lose their livelihoods and be barred from participation in society.
In fact, if either side believes in bodily autonomy, the phrase, “My body, my choice,” would be adamant in both cases, instead of cherry-picking where it should be applied. This is a moral inconsistency and one of the reasons why both sides fight so vehemently over the phrase, they are trying to substantiate that inconsistency. Each side will resort to logical fallacies and in turn, when they cannot substantiate their inconsistencies when they do not get their way, can and often do resort to radicalization and extremism (See far left, far right).
So, understanding that, it’s important to look inward at what we believe and why we believe it, to dissolve inconsistencies, and try to understand why we hate someone or something. The chances are high that the reasons you hate someone or something is due to something within yourself that needs to be fixed, or at minimum addressed. The important distinction here is that trauma can sometimes leave a deep imprint, whereas one will hate based on fear rather than an internal self-reflection. In such cases, you can still repair this internally through retrospective reflection and introspective self-knowledge.
In any case, a life of hate and anger isn’t worth it, it isn’t worthy of this incredibly rare gift called life and will keep one from truly and fully living. It is always better to look within than it is to look away!
© 2022 Frederick W. Cook
This article was originally featured on: Son of Sinai
